Oooh my head. Just got out of Santiago de Chile. We arrived there on the 26th and checked into in a posh place called, "Hotel Vegas" . We then went out for some food, and ended up in the Bar de La Union next to the stock exchange. We had to get past a soldier on the gate and discovered inside a wood panelled haven for good old boys. Naomi was the only girl in there, the waiter was 145 and the wine was fanatstic. We didnt stay long.

The next morning we wondered around the City, which is beautiful and chaotic. It seems much more remote than Argentina. Had to spend a lot of the day trying to sort out our onward itinerary. It is proving difficult to get to where we want to go by land as the tourist season hasnt really kicked in yet and many of the ferries and roads are not open. But we got a quick 17 point plan together:

1) Buy large hat from specialist hat shop
2) Go and eat fish in mad food market
3) Go to tourist information and get very limited information
4) Go to the other tourist information place and get slightly less information
5) Go to travel agents and get the same limited information but with different dates and times
6) Book a ferry from Puerto Montt to Puerto Chacabuko (look it up if your interested)
7) Rent a 4x4 from Hertz at huge expense from a nice English girl called Emma, who took pitty on us cos we were English and gave us 15% off.
8) Get the funicular up to large statue of Virgin Mary and look at the view
9) Come down, sit in a bar, get very drunk on Pisco Sours and eat Sushi
10) Wake up, collect car, while Naomi was ill (Not form drink she was good, but from the 8 tonnes of raw fish she ate.)
11) Get lost driving in streets of Santiago while chronically hungover
12) Find Naomi and drive to Valpairoso 100K from Santiago
13) Look around amazing town and take loads of pictures (which I cant upload yet) and ride more funiculars
15) Get a voicemail from Julie Gardener (the exec producer of Doctor Who) as my phone seems to be working
16) Call a surprised James Goss to deal with call and generally say hi. (Hi James, sorry I didnt make any sense I was hungover.)
17) Write it all down.

We head South now on a coastal road hoping to find a surf paradise with hopefully no interventions from any Time Lords

Thats it for now, see you later and thanks for all the emails and comments
  ¶ 6:08 PM

  Wow what a day. It all started brilliantly when Naomi got the results of her MA. She got a distinction. She is so happy and relieved. Iīm very proud of her. Sheīs smart. So a great start.........then...James & Chris turned up at hostel and Naomi, Michelle (who we met on the ride) jumped into the little Fiat and headed of to the wine museum. Jim is a nifty driver and Chris and he navigated us there no problem. We did the tour in Spanish and Michelle kindly translated everything. We then headed to the tasting room and had a lovely white and tried the a vino tinto made from Malbec the native Argentinian grape. A bit rough but very nice when blended with a Cabernet Sauvignon. Am I boring you yet? Anyway we didnīt spit it out. We then tried to find another bodegas with a great retaurant attached. Ended up asking a taxi driver who just drove there and we followed. For free. So nice. We had some great food then a 3.45 we decided that we had to leave to go paragliding. It seemed like a much better idea now. Naomi and Michelle decided to have pudding instead. Also a good idea.

Iīm learning to Paraglide when I get back to the UK...Nairn if you are reading this sign me up now. It was fantastic. Running of a 600m cliff attached to a kite is the only way to travel. Here have a look......

Chris and I before hand

Looking up.....

Looking down

Jim landing just like he does for AA

The fun looks like itīs over for a bit now and weīre back on the buses to Santiago. But hey thatīs in CHILE!  ¶ 1:54 AM

  So I havenīt got Nomes into a raft yet but the horse riding yesterday was absolutely amazing. Not having ridden a horse for 10 years and then only for ten mins it was amazing to go treking 3000m above sea level through the mountains. Nomes had a crazy little horse who had issues with another horse leading to it snorting stomping and eventually Nomeīs horse bucking. Nomes was fanatstic and held on looking like a real cow girl or Goucha. We met some great people on the trek one of whom, James, is a pilot for American Airlines. With a bit of luck he and his mate Chris are picking us in a mo to go a check out the bodegas of Mendoza with the possibility of going Paragliding later. Writing that, it does sound like a stupid idea. Weīll see. Anyway here are a couple of pics. Sorry I canīt compress them here so they might take a while to down load



Nomes, Nomes on the range

Me looking like a plank  ¶ 1:53 PM

  On the bus last night I dreamed that Naomi and I had booked a minibus to take us from our house to Heathrow Airport. It turned up and we hopped in but didnīt see much cos it was the middle of the night. Anyway as we drove on it seemd that the route we were taking bore little resemblance to the North Circular and more to the Argentinian Sierra. There were two drivers and as dawn broke we saw that they were in fact Ukranian gangsters who had come to steal our travellers cheques. Luckily I managed to steal the minicab which had now turned into an 1985 Mercedes. We escaped by driving through the toilets but only half a mile or so as it broke down. At this point I woke to find that our coach had in fact broken down in the middle of nowhere. The road was stright to the horizon in both directions. Naomi was still asleep and only woke up when the drivers got the coach going an hour later. All the while Iīm looking out the window for a blue Mercedes with a couple of annoyed looking Ukranians in it.

Weīre in MEndoza now and tired. Slap up fish supper tonight then I think Naomi has convinced me to go horse riding tomorrw. Like Iīm not saddle sore enough.  ¶ 7:44 PM